Halloween and the Pumpkin Tree –

Halloween is a fun holiday in which people dress in costumes and go out to have fun, but it can also be a very scary time for children. Parents are often cautioned to keep their children away from strangers, because so many children are abducted every year, but it’s not enough to limit your child’s Halloween fun. The trick to keeping your child safe is to make him feel safe. Giving them the tools to make the scary… or dangerous, less scary.

Halloween is a time of year when people celebrate dressing up, eating candy, and also staying indoors. But how does this coincide with the original meaning of Halloween? Halloween was an ancient Irish holiday that was celebrated by the Celts in the fall. The festival was associated with the Samhain, or the Celtic New Year, an ancient Celtic harvest festival that came during the month of October. The Celtic festival was also known as the Feast of the Dead, since it was thought that the dead returned to earth to take part in the rituals that were performed. Samhain was celebrated at the beginning of the winter season, and it marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the winter solstice.

Halloween is one of the most important holidays in the U.S., bringing with it the delicious treats, haunted houses, and scary costumes. But what you might not know is that this holiday has a little history which you can get into by visiting the “Pumpkin Tree”.

Yes, I am aware. “Where is he heading with this story?” you wonder. “I’ll give him 10 seconds to attract my interest before I take my crazy interweb talents somewhere, yo,” and “I’ll give him ten seconds to pique my interest before I take my mad interweb skills elsewhere, yo.” We have the world’s first pumpkin in a tree. BAM….dismisses the microphone and exits the stage. Anyway, now that you know about this miracle, I’ll keep writing until the sun rises and provides me the chance to take photographic evidence of my crazy claim, while also devising a method to charge admission for seeing this magnificent display of nature’s beauty.

Our landlord hired three hired hands (3 guys, for a total of 6 hands) and a tiny, worn-out tractor to plow down and clear up the weeds growing amid the trees in our semi-private orchard last weekend. Unfortunately, the huge pumpkin patch, as well as virtually every ground-clinging, wall (and tree) climbing vine, perished along with the weeds. We were saddened to see the pumpkin patch go since one of the vines had found better pastures by scaling a 4 foot rock wall, slithering through wrought iron, and eventually settling and producing a small pumpkin in a seldom used section of our driveway. This, too, had vanished. “Hand me a Kleenex, Tito.”

We were scanning the trees for ripe fruit over the fence when something grabbed my wife’s attention. Not one, but two pumpkins, each the size of a soccer ball, were disguised and snuggled amid the leaves of an orange tree, but hung 5 feet above the ground. “Nature finds a way,” to paraphrase a line from Jurassic Park. Everyone have a wonderful Halloween!

Halloween is a day to dress up and show our creativity. But there are so many ways to decorate for Halloween. If you take a look around your local Walmart, you’ll see what I mean. If you want to be different this year, try adding a tree in your yard or porch. This year, instead of buying a witch or vampire, why not buy a pumpkin? There are so many different kinds of pumpkins, here are some you might like.. Read more about mini halloween tree and let us know what you think.